Hot Pot One - Hot pot

Restaurant: Hot Pot One

Cuisine: Hot pot/Chinese/All you can eat
Last visited: November 6, 09
Area: Richmond, BC
Unit 3600 - 4151 Hazelbridge Way (Inside Aberdeen Centre/Mall)
Price Range: $20-30

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 4.5
Service: 4.5
Ambiance: 4.5
Overall: 4.5
Additional comments:

• Upscale hot pot
• All-you-can-eat Adult: $22.22 Child 4-9 years: $17.22
• $7.50 soup base, $8.50 for combo soup base
• Free Plum juice, Chrysanthemum Tea & sauce (included in price)
• Create your own sauce - all sauces are free
  
• Automatic hot pot stoves
• Smaller menu, but better quality
• Benefit of rounds tables and a lazy susan
• Fresh food
  
• Clean
• Great service
• A few cooked items available

**Recommendation: My preference for soup base is satay and parsley & preserved egg soup

I'm going to write this review differently than my others because it's hard to get detailed/specific with all-you-can-eat hot pot.

I had gone to Claypot Hot Pot Restaurant on Friday and went to Hot Pot One on Sunday. Going for almost back to back all-you-can-eat hot pot dinners gave me the chance to really compare them. The difference was evident and obvious. Although Hot One One is considered one of the upscale hot pot places, the price is well worth it. You really are paying the extra for quality of food and service. You get bigger chicken wings instead of dinky ones they serve at cheaper places, fresher and bigger oysters and seafood, and just overall better food and quality you can taste. Also they refill your hot pot water with chicken broth and not just water! (It is diluted, but most places won't care and just refill your hot pot with water).

I hate how hot pot places charge you extra for everything: $1 for drinks, $.50 for pop, $7 for soup base, $.50 for sauces etc., in the end it all adds up and you have a steep bill. I find it more convenient to pay 1 price and have everything included, and that's why I like Hot Pot One. The price includes unlimited sauces and drinks.

The variety of sauces make hot pot more enjoyable because it adds more flavour to your dipping sauce...you also have the option of several dipping sauces. At Hot Pot One they have a specific person assigned to solely mix sauces for the night. You just tell him what combination of sauces you want and he mixes it for you. Most hot pot places will include your standard satay sauce and sesame sauce for free, but all the other sauces will be an extra $.50.


Hot Pot One sauces include:

• Slivered Ginger
• Minced Garlic
• Minced Chives
• Cilantro
• Green onion
• Jalapeno
• Hot Chili sauce
• Soy sauce
• Sesame sauce
• Satay Sauce

Hot Pot One items that are not on every hot pot menu : Lotus root, potato, beef brisket, deep-fried pig's skin, marinated beef slices

I wish they had: Enoki mushrooms, Konnyaku (clear noodles in knots), Taro thread (noodle), Garland Chrysanthemum, more cooked food like stick rice etc, more snacks, egg


On the table:

• Satay Soup (left) & Parsley and preserved egg soup (right)
• Combo soup base &8.50

• Satay Soup ($7.50)
• This soup base is a standard and my favourite hot pot soup base.
  
• Parsley and preserved egg soup ($7.50)
• Fro me, this is the perfect combination of soup bases when you got for hot pot. You have the satay the spicier/bolder/richer soup, and then your lighter soup which is this one.
• There was maybe only half a preserved egg in there cut up into thirds though. Could have given us more than than.
• Shrimps and fish fillets
• The shrimps were bigger than other hot pot places and very fresh.
• Oysters
  
• Oysters were huge, really fat and plump.
• Limit 2 per person.
  
• 
• Deep Fried Fish Skin
• These are a traditional Chinese snack that people munch on while the food cooks.
  
• They're offered at almost every hot pot place.
• Fatty Beef Slices
  
• The present all their meats like this. It's quite nice but in order to do this you need to slice your meats frozen, store them frozen, and serve them frozen. I mean after it cooks in the soup and you dip it in your sauce, you can't really tell between frozen/fresh so it didn't bother me.
• Corn, pork blood, tofu puffs, Chinese mushrooms (and some other organs I'm unsure of)
• The dark red rectangular blocks is pork blood...I'm not a fan.
  
• I love those tofu puffs, especially for hot pot. They just absorb all the flavours of the soup and get super juicy. They hold so much liquid and act like a sponge for flavour.

Claypot Restaurant - Hot pot

Restaurant: Claypot Restaurant

Cuisine: Hot pot/Chinese/All you can eat
Last visited: November 6, 09
Area: Richmond, BC
Unit 105 - 8291 Alexandra Road
Price Range: $20-30

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 2
Service: 2
Ambiance: 1.5
Overall: 2
Additional comments:

• Has a lot of variety
• Cooked food available (5 items)
• Serves lettuce in strainers type of hot pot place
  
• Not as clean
• Spacious
• Casual
• Busy/line-ups
• 1.5 hour eating time during peak times
• All you can eat $18.95 + $7 soup base
• Addition $.50 for sauces
  
• Gourmet soup bases available
• $0.50 soft drinks
• 4 for $10 domestic beer
  

**Recommendation: Deep fried wontons

I'm going to write this review differently than my others because it's hard to get detailed/specific with all-you-can-eat hot pot.

I went to Claypot Restaurant as a THIRD option because Chubby Lamb Hot Pot and Cattle Hot Pot, both down the street, were completely booked up.

Claypot is very popular to locals and it's almost always packed on Fridays and the weekends. They're not even that cheap, the soup base is slightly more expensive than other places and they charge you extra for sauces. I think they're always packed because it's casual, pretty quick service, seats the most out of all the other hot pot places on Alexandra, and the menu selection is perhaps the most extensive. It serves all the standards and more, however the quality and cleanliness is not as good as it's competitors. The shrimps specifically weren't fresh and tasted like the sea, that was the worst for me. I think it's usually a default choice if everything else is booked up...it would and was my default choice.

When I go for hot pot I look for:
1) Variety
2) Cleanliness
3) Freshness

Not necessarily in that order either.

Claypot's items that are not on every hot pot menu : Enoki mushrooms, lotus root, Garland Chrysthemum, salmon fish head, geoduck ($13/dish), preserved squid, taro thread noodle, fish noodle, deep fried wontons, 2-3 hot pot rice items, sticky rice

I wish they had: Konnyaku (clear noodles in knots), Rice noodle (flat thick ones)

On the table:

• Pork Bone Soup (left) & Satay Soup (right)

• Pork Bone Soup 2/6 ($10)
• This soup base was one of their specialty soup bases, so it took a bit longer to prepare and costs a bit extra.
  
• I think it was a rip off though. It wasn't that flavourful, as pork bone soup should be. There was a bone but I didn't tastes the slow-cooked all day flavours. they're were some mushrooms and corn in it too, but in the end it was nothing special.
  
• Satay Soup 4/6 ($7)
• This soup base was quite good, and not as spicy as other places. I always chose this soup base, it's the best one for hot pot.
• AAA Beef slices
• Lamb slices
• Some pork and beef organs (maybe sweetbreads? livers? or kidneys?)
• Deep Fried Wontons 3.5/6
  
• These are really popular here, it's one of their specialty hot food items and younger people go crazy for them. They're perfect bite-sized munchies.
  
• It's exactly what it is. I think they're so popular because they're super crispy, deep fried until golden, and the pork meat is still juicy. They're pink inside and you might think they're undercooked, but they're not...they just look like that.
• They serve it with sweet and sour sauce so they're great as snacks while you're waiting for your food to cook.
  
• I would prefer more pork filling, but I guess that's being picky.

My review for Hot Pot One